Death Penalty Upheld for Son Who Killed Disabled Mother

The state Supreme Court on Monday unanimously upheld the death penalty for a Riverside man convicted of shooting his disabled mother while burglarizing his parents’ home.

A Riverside County jury found defendant Donald Ray Millwee guilty of first-degree murder with use of a rifle. It found two special circumstances warranting the death penalty because the killing took place during a robbery and a burglary.

Millwee appealed that verdict, saying that his attorney and the trial judge made a long list of errors, ranging from failure to block the use of prejudicial evidence during the trial to prosecutorial bias.

But on Monday, the high court issued an opinion finding that no prejudicial error occurred during any phase of the trial.

The case centered on the Sept. 8, 1986, death of Esta Millwee, who had been paralyzed on one side since suffering a brain aneurysm in 1981.

According to court testimony, Donald Ray Millwee, a transient with a long history of crime, drug abuse and family trouble, had made plans to meet his father that morning so the two could work together on a plumbing job.

The younger Millwee spent most of his days at the Hi Ho Tavern, but his father hired him for odd jobs from time to time so his son would not be penniless, according to trial testimony.

When Millwee showed up at the tavern--their appointed meeting place--barefoot, dirty and smelling of alcohol at 7:35 a.m., his father refused to take him along.

They argued, and after his father left, Millwee went to his parents’ house and shot his mother.